Jew's Harps in European Archaeology - Gjermund Kolltveit

BAR INTERNATIONAL SERIES

Jew’s Harps in EuropeanArchaeology

Gjermund Kolltveit

For title page verso:

The cover photo:

Jew’s harps excavated at Hallwil

Castle, Switzerland.

Photo: Gjermund Kolltveit. Courtesy

of Swizz National Museum, Zürich.

Dedication: For Agnes and Jo

Viewed in a psychoanalytical and evolutionisticperspective, this monograph can be seen as arelease of my propensity to be a hunter-gather-

er, since the quantitively largest part of the work hasbeen to make a collection, gathered through extensivehunting trips in various museums and institutions inEurope. The effort of collecting also gave me theopportunity to re-experience my own childhood. Asmany other children, I was busy with collecting andclassifying insects, napkins, football cards and otheritems. Among things I did not collect, however, werejew’s harps.

The fact that this work is based on a collection ofone single artifact, does not, however, exclude widerperspectives and an intention to be “culture-centred”instead of “artifact-centred”. The compilation ofexcavated jew’s harps is hence not the goal in itself,but a means to discuss cultural, social and historicalissues, also when employing a narrow focus on thematerial objects themselves and their technology.

It is not an unconscious choice that the artifact inquestion here is a musical instument. Although themonograph does not explixitely focus on music, myattraction to jew’s harps from archaeological contextsarose from an interest in music and sounds of the past.More specifically, my interest in music combined witharchaeology started during my undergraduate studiesat the University of Oslo. I had been living as a pro-fessional violinist for some years, and had decided totake a break to start studying archaeology. I soon real-ized, however, that it was impossible to simply quit mymusical career.Therefore, it was fascinating to becomeaware of the works of the archaeologist Cajsa S. Lundof Sweden, who was one of the pioneers in the fieldof music archaeology or archaeomusicology. I eventu-ally specialised my studies in the direction of musicarchaeology, because it was a way to combine myinterests, and because I found it fascinating andimportant to explore problems and issues in the inter-section between musicology and archaeology. I wasfortunate to get Cajsa S. Lund as an external supervi-sor for my MA studies at the Department ofMusicology. It was she who advised me to look clos-er at the archaeological material of jew’s harps. I amthankful for her help and inspiration.

A period of almost ten years with research on jew’sharps is brought to the end with this volume,appearng here as a revised version of my doctoral the-sis with the same title (University of Oslo, 2004).Thedoctorate was made possible through funding fromThe Norwegian Research Council. I was offered aworking place at The Norwegian Folk Music

Collection, which is a branch of The Department ofMusicology. My supervisor Tellef Kvifte guided methrough the work. He has showed me confidence, anddeserves thanks for always being available for adviceand help, in his efficient, professional and safe way.

I appreciated the opportunity to be a part of thevital community of doctoral students at theDepartment of Musicology. Especial thanks are due toEva Falck and Odd Skårberg for stimulating conver-sations.

I have also benefitted from the training program forresearchers at the University of Oslo, and I haveappreciated the supportive atmosphere at the seminarsled by Ståle Wikshåland, Trygve Nergaard, KnutKjellstadli and Tellef Kvifte.

Fredrick Crane, Iowa, has meant much to this study,both scholarly and as a friend. He has sendt me dataon finds and offered valuable comments throughoutthe work. I am greatful to him for sharing his enor-mous knowledge of jew’ harps and for believing inme.

I wish to thank the archaeologists Christian Kellerfor comments on the typology chapter and KnutPaasche for information on archaeological surfacesand metallurgy. From the Norwegian Jew’s harp sceneI would like to thank Bernhard Folkestad for con-structive remarks.

My effort of documenting archaelogical Jew’s harpfinds has brought me to several countries and allowedme to become aquainted with a lot of people. I here-by express my deepest gratitude to curators, archaeol-ogists and others who have helped me to collect thematerial. I would also like to thank Graeme Lawson(England), Thomas Repiszky (Hungary), AnnemiesTamboer (The Netherlands), Cristoph Bizer(Germany) Gorm Jessen (Denmark), TennaKristensen (Denmark), Igor Tonurist (Estonia), MartinBoiko (Latvia) and Timo Leisiö (Finland) for sharingmaterial and for valuable information.Thanks is alsodue to Uta Hennig (Germany), who showed me hercollection of music iconographical sources andWerner Meyer (Switzerland), who provided usefulinformation on Swiss archaeology. Furthermore, Iwant to thank Andreas König, Andreas Heege (bothGermany) and Jim Spriggs (England) for hospitality.

Not only individuals, but also institutions deserve mygratitude.The material could not have been studied andpresented in this way without kind permission from themany museums and institutions in possession of thefinds.Thus, the reproductions displayed in the Catalogueand elsewhere in the work should be regarded as copy-righted material,belonging to the possessory institutions.

iii

Preface

I am thankful to the following people for helpingwith translations: Morten Abildsnes has translatedsome Slavonic text sections and commented onmaterials from Eastern Europe. Hans-HinrichThedens translated an inquiry letter into German.Marthe Disen,Alfredo Barbuti and Eva Falck assistedwith Italian texts. Sandor von Körtvelyessy proofreadHungarian place names.

Trevor Ford has spendt hours correcting andimproving my English. Romilly Hambling helpedwith language improvement and proofreading at thefinal stage. I am grateful to them both.

Ann-Turi Ford did great work with illustrationsand lay-out, amongst other things.Without her sup-port this thesis would not have been accomplished inits present form.

Finally I would like to express my deepest appreci-ation to the examining commitee appointed by theUniversity of Oslo, consisting of Graeme Lawson(Cambridge), Gunnar Ternhag (Falun) and GiselaAttinger (Oslo), for their constructive responses andcomments.

Nesodden, March 2006Gjermund Kolltveit

iv

List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .viiList of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Aim and approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1Excavated music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2The jew’s harp – some essential background . . .3

Construction, acoustics and playing technique .3Geographical distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4European history and archaeology 5Revival . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Collecting material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5The Nordic Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6Ireland and United Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . .9The Low Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein . . . .15France, Iberia and Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17The Balkans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18The central and eastern parts of Europe . . .18

Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

2.Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Terms and definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22Manufacture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Forging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23Bending from a rod (cold working) . . . . . .25Casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Other methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

The lamella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27Cases for jew’s harps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Dialogue one:When did the jew’s harp become established in Europe? . .30

3.Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38The concepts of type and typology . . . . . . . . .38

Top-down or bottom-up? . . . . . . . . . . . . .39Emic or etic types? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Purpose and practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41Earlier typologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42Definition of variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43Material 43, Method of manufacture 43, Cross-section of the bow 43,Attachment of the lamellato the frame 44,The shape of the bow 44,Extension of the lamella beyond the frame 45,Dimensions, proportions and weight 45

Technology:A hierarchical approach . . . . . . .45Morphological developments . . . . . . . . . . . .48

Extension of the lamella . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49The AL/OL ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50Bow shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Technology and chronology: division of types . .53Mainly medieval: Kransen,Billingsgate, Horsens, Hallwil,Bruck and Sperrboden types . . . . . . . . . . . .55Kransen 55, Billingsgate 57, Horsens 57,Hallwil 59, Bruck 60, Sperrboden 61Long arms, hairpin-shaped:Kuusisto, Schauenburg, Gironville and Kvikkjokk types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61Kuusisto 61, Schauenburg 62, Gironville 63,Kvikkjokk 64Post-medieval iron: Gloucester, Damme,Kufstein and Ekeberg types . . . . . . . . . . . .64Gloucester 65, Damme 66, Kufstein 67,Ekeberg 67Wedged attachment of the lamella: Pärnu and Höxter types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68Pärnu 68, Höxter 69Copper alloy: Greifswald, Odiham,Nijmegen, Stafford and Rochester types . . .69Greifswald 70, Odiham 70, Nijmegen 71,Stafford 72, Rochester 73Unusual and/or modern specimens . . . . . .74

4. Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75The North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75The West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76The South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79The East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80Early phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81Late phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84Production and trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84

Mass production or artisanal work? . . . . . . .84The quality of the products 85Organization of the crafts . . . . . . . . . . . . .85Punch marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85Trade and communication . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

Dialogue two: But is this reallymusic history? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90

5. Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95The find locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95

Regional variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96Social context and typology . . . . . . . . . . . .97The rural/urban axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

v

Contents

The castle finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98The monastery finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99The rural finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100The urban finds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100Maritime finds? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

Medieval classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101Social classification of music, musical instruments and the jew’s harp . . . . . . . . .101Systematic classification and the anomalousnature of the jew’s harp . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105The varied and associative terms for the jew’s harp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

Social groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109

Profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110Functions and meanings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111

Dance accompaniment . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111Courting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111Shamanism and therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111Witchcraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112Supernatural beings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112Introvert musicking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112

6. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Catalogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253

vi

Fig. 1.1: Facsimile of the standard letter sent to museums in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Fig. 1.2: Facsimile of the standard form used for documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

Fig. 2.1: Parts of the jew’s harp: terminology . . . .23Fig. 2.2:The rod as a working piece . . . . . . . . .24Fig. 2.3:The middle section of the rod is

worked flat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Fig. 2.4:A notch for the lamella is cut into

the centre of the rod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Fig. 2.5:The frame is bent into shape around

a former . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24Fig. 2.6:The point of attachment of the lamella

viewed from the back of the frame . . . . . . . .24Fig. 2.7:The lop-sided profile of the frame

after alignment with the lamella . . . . . . . . . .25Fig. 2.8: One half of a piece-mould for

casting a jew’s harp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26Fig. 2.9: One half of a piece-mould for

multiple casting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27Fig. 2.10: Modern forged jew’s harp from Nepal

with forged lamella. Photo by the author.Private coll. of author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Fig. 2.11:The two principal methods of attaching the lamella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

Fig. 2.12: Different designs of the tip of the lamella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Fig. 2.13: One possible way of protecting the instrument during transport . . . . . . . . . .29

Fig. 3.1: Classification and typology (After Klejn 1982: 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Fig. 3.2:The proposed terms to describe the cross-section of the bow . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

Fig. 3.3:Terminology for bow shapes . . . . . . . . .45Fig. 3.4: Classification hierarchy determined

on the basis of technology and inclusive of all the catalogued material . . . . .46

Fig. 3.5: Frequency of material used in manufacture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Fig. 3.6: Frequency of method of manufacture for iron and Cu-alloy harps . . . .47

Fig. 3.7: Iron, forged: Frequency of cross-sections . .47Fig. 3.8: Classification hierarchy showing

the branches of jew’s harps determined on the basis of technology in the Middle Ages . . .48

Fig. 3.9: Classification hierarchy illustrating the most common medieval branches of jew’s harps from the standpoint of technology . . . .49

Fig. 3.10:Arm length (AL) as a percentage of overall length (OL) examined for three 200-year periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

Fig. 3.11:Arm length (AL) as a percentage of overall length (OL) examined for six 100-year periods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Fig. 3.12: Suggested general development of arm length (AL) as a percentage of overall length (OL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Fig. 3.13: Plots of overall length (OL) against arm length (AL) for two-century (A) and one-century (B) periods . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Fig. 3.14:Arm length (AL) as a percentage of overall length (OL) examined for different bow shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Fig. 3.15: Development of bow shapes . . . . . . . .53Fig. 3.16: Chart showing the types with

their chronological significance . . . . . . . . . . .54Fig. 3.17: Length of the arms (AL), overall

length (OL) and the relation between them (AL/OL), examined for the types Kransen, Greifswald, Bruck and Hallwil . . . . .55

Fig. 3.18: Jew’s harp (no. 120) from the QuarterKransen, Uppsala, Sweden. Photo by author,courtesy of Upplandsmuseet, Uppsala. . . . . . . .56

Fig. 3.19: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Kransen type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Fig. 3.20: Jew’s harp (no. 224) from Billingsgate lorry park, London (Wardle 1998:285, fig. 217, no. 935). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

Fig. 3.21: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Billingsgate type. (A) with straight back to the bow; (B) with curved back to the bow . . . .57

Fig. 3.22: Jew’s harp (no. 1) from Fugholm Street, Horsens, Jylland, Denmark (Andersen et al. 1976: 115, fig. 9) . . . . . . . . .57

Fig. 3.23: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Horsens type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Fig. 3.24: Jew’s harp (no. 541) from Hallwil Castle,Aargau, Switzerland. Photo by author, courtesy of Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich. . . .59

Fig. 3.25: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Hallwil type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Fig. 3.26: Jew’s harp (no. 810) from Bruck Castle,Tirol,Austria (Schick 2001:plate 1, no. 8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Fig. 3.27: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Bruck type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Fig. 3.28: (A) Jew’s harp with two lamellae (no.349), found in Sperrboden, Molln, Upper Austria (Mohr 1999: 21, fig. 5) (B) Similar example (no. 542) from Hallwil Castle,Aargau,Switzerland. Photo by author, courtesy ofSchweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich. . . . . .61

Fig. 3.29: Jew’s harp (no. 289) from Kuusisto (Kustö) Castle, Finland.Photo: Finnish National Museum. . . . . . . . . .61

Fig. 3.30: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Kuusisto type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

Fig. 3.31: Forged/rectangular jew’s harps with hammered lamella. (A) Kv. Disa,Uppsala, Sweden (no. 122), 13th century.Photo by author, courtesy ofRiksantikvarieämbätet, Uppsala. (B)Erkebispegården,Trondheim, Norway (no. 147), 1497–1532 (Ekroll et al. 1997: 83) (C) Novgorod (no. 295), 14th century (Povetkin 1992: fig.VII.3, no. 20, p. 211). . . . .62

vii

List of Figures

Fig. 3.32: Jew’s harp (no. 154) from Schauenburg,near Dossenheim, Baden-Württemberg,Germany. Photo by author, courtesy of Heimatmuseum der Gemeinde Dossenheim. . .62

Fig. 3.33: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as theSchauenburg type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Fig. 3.34: Jew’s harp (no. 332) from Gironville,Ain, Rhone-Alpes, France (Homo-Lechner1996: 134). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Fig. 3.35: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Gironville type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63

Fig. 3.36: Medieval jew’s harps with a dia mond-shaped cross-section that tends towards hexagonal.(A) Øvre Gilberg, Fåberg, Norway (no. 137),medieval (Sevåg 1973: 128). (B) Holbæk,Danmark (no. 800), 1300–1450. Photo by GormJessen. (C) Grove Priory, Bedfordshire, England (no. 248), 14th century. Photo by author,courtesy of Luton Museums Service. . . . . . . . . .64

Fig. 3.37: Jew’s harp (no. 129) from Kvikkjokk,Jokkmokk county, Lappland, Sweden. Photo by Christian Reimers, Riksinventeringen(Musikmuseet, Stockholm). . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Fig. 3.38: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Kvikkjokk type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Fig. 3.39: Jew’s harp (no. 272) from Southgate Street, Gloucester, England. Drawing:Gloucester Archaeology Unit. . . . . . . . . . . . .65

Fig. 3.40: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Gloucester type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Fig. 3.41: Jew’s harp from Vadstena Monastery,Sweden (no. 103), with the bow forged so that the bow has a hexagonal cross-section of the frame only partly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Fig. 3.42: Jew’s harp from Damme,West-Vlanderen, Belgium (Ypey 1976: 220, fig. 16) .66

Fig. 3.43: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as theDamme type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Fig. 3.44: Jew’s harp (no. 814) from Kufstein Fort,Tirol,Austria (Schick 2001: plate 1, no. 8) . . .67

Fig. 3.45: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as theKufstein type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

Fig. 3.46: Jew’s harp (no. 140) from Ekeberg, Oslo,Norway. Photo: Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo. . .67

Fig. 3.47: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Ekeberg type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

Fig. 3.48: Jew’s harp (no. 411) from Munga Street 2,Pärnu, Estonia (Tamla 1992: 290; plate 14, no. 6) .68

Fig. 3.49: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Pärnu type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68

Fig. 3.50: Jew’s harp (no. 155) excavated in the old city of Höxter, Nordrhein-Westfalen,Germany. Photo by author, courtesy ofStadtarchäologie, Höxter City. . . . . . . . . . . .69

Fig. 3.51: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Höxter type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Fig. 3.52: Jew’s harp (no. 468) from Greifswald,Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.Drawing: Landesamt für BodendenkmalpflegeMecklenburg-Vorpommern. . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Fig. 3.53: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Greifswald type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Fig. 3.54: Jew’s harp (no. 259) excavated at OdihamCastle (King John’s Castle), Hampshire, UnitedKingdom. Photo by author, courtesy of Hampshire County Council Museums Service. .70

Fig. 3.55: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Odiham type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Fig. 3.56: Jew’s harp (no. 664) from Nijmegen,Gelderland,The Netherlands (Ypey 1976: 217) . .71

Fig. 3.57: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Nijmegen type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Fig. 3.58: Jew’s harp (no. 262) from Stafford Castle, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. Photo byauthor, courtesy of Stafford Borough Council. .72

Fig. 3.59: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Stafford type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72

Fig. 3.60: Left: no. 773, Nottinghamshire,England. Right: no. 780, Cambridgeshire,England. Photo by Tellef Kvifte, courtesy of Frederick Crane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

Fig. 3.61: Jew’s harp (no. 794) from Rochester (Grove 1962: 207, fig. 6) . . . . . . . .73

Fig. 3.62: Outlines of jew’s harps classified as the Rochester type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

Fig. 3.63: Outline profile of jew’s harp from Lom, Norway (no. 134) . . . . . . . . . . . .74

Fig. 4.1: Distribution map for Europe showing all provenanced finds listed in the Catalogue . .75

Fig. 4.2: Distribution of the copper alloy types,illustrating a movement from east to west . . . .78

Fig. 4.3: Distribution map, Europe, 13–15th centuries (early phase) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

Fig. 4.4: (A) No. 222 from Old Custom House,London, 1270–1350 (Wardle 1998: 285, fig.217,no. 933). (B) No. 223 from Baynard House,Queen Victoria Street, London, 1330–1380 (op.cit.: 285, fig. 217, no. 934). (C) Modern Afghanexample from the Uzbek ethnic group (Dournon-Taurelle and Wright 1978: 114, no. 112). . . . . .83

Fig. 4.5: Distribution map, Europe, 16th–19th centuries (late phase) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

Fig. 4.6: Illustration of all the marks from the Catalogue.The illustrations of the marks fromHallwil Castle are taken from Lithbergs work on the material found there (1932).Acknowledge-ments of other sources are given in the Catalogue, where the marks are also shown. . . . .88

Fig. 5.1: Social context related to year of finding .96Fig. 5.2: Distribution of the categories rural

and urban in per cent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98Fig. 5.3: Illustration from Sebastian Virdung’s

Musica getutscht (1511) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102Fig. 5.4: Beggar playing a jew’s harp. Painting

attributed to the School of Ferrara, ca 1490.Original in Staatliche Museen zu Berlin(Herrmann-Schneider 2000: 291, fig. 5) . . . .103

Fig. 5.5:A serious threat to the order of zoological classification: the Australian duckbill. Illustration by Christine Hoel. . . . .106

Fig. 5.6:Three of the harps from Hallwil Castle,Switzerland. From the left: Nos. 594,602 and 601. Photo by author, courtesy ofSchweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich. . . .109

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Table 1.1:The finds from The Nordic Countries . . .7Table 1.2:The finds from United Kingdom

and the Republic of Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . .10Table 1.3:The finds from the Low Countries . . .13Table 1.4:The finds from Germany . . . . . . . . . .14Table 1.5:The finds from Austria, Switzerland

and Liechtenstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16Table 1.6:The finds from France and Italy . . . . .17Table 1.7:The finds from the central and

eastern parts of Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Table 3.1: Iron jew’s harps made with bending from a rod (cold working) . . . . . . . .48

Table 3.2: Jew’s harps with extension of the lamella behind the bow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Table 5.1: Frequency of the social contexts . . . .95Table 5.2: Social context related to countries . . .96Table 5.3: Social context related to

manufacturing material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97

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List of Tables

1. Introduction

Aim and approach

The subject of this monograph is the archaeology ofthe jew’s harp in Europe. It is based on archaeolog-ical finds collected from various sources and com-

piled into a database.This compilation – which is append-ed to the thesis as the Catalogue – is itself a major part ofthe work, connected as it is to the main aim of document-ing the finds and thus contributing to an understanding ofthe early period of the jew’s harp in Europe.

The basic approach to typology and chronology adoptedhere represents an attempt to bring coherence to an appar-ently chaotic situation. First, scholars disagree on when thejew’s harp became established in Europe. Some publica-tions state that it first appeared in the 14th century, where-as others claim that the instrument has existed in theregion for 2,000 years. Second, the archaeological materialis large and varied, with the connections and continuitybetween finds obscure. The number of identified jew’sharps on which this thesis is based is 830, and new finds arereported all the time.Although the instrument has changedlittle in basic appearance over the last eight hundred years,we find variation between individual instruments in termsof construction materials and techniques, size, form, and soon.What is lacking is an understanding of how the variousfinds are related and of the typological developmentsamong them. Until some degree of organization and clar-ity can be brought to bear on this somewhat chaotic situ-ation of types and datings, the cultural significance of theinstrument may remain poorly understood.

The cultural significance and social context of the findsare also major issues in this thesis.The material objects, ofcourse, cannot speak for themselves. But all the finds andtheir contexts play an important part in my interpretations,together with other sources, such as iconographical repre-sentations and various historical and ethnographicalsources.The conclusions should be taken as interim state-ments. This is not because they are unsound or based onweak evidence, but because I believe it is better to regardthis area of research as open-ended rather than amenable tofinal, definitive answers. This is also a reason why I haveused dialogue form in two places in the thesis, as it allowsdiscussion of issues that are open to interpretation fromconflicting angles.

In the main approaches used in this work, ideas andquestions are brought into dialogue with the materialobjects.At some stages it is necessary to go into detail – forinstance, through a study of the different cross-sections ofthe metal frame of the instrument near the attachment ofthe lamella.At other stages we turn away from the objectsto develop and articulate ideas and questions. This is a

dialectical process between the particular and the general,between empiricism and theory. In this kind of researchsuch reasoning moves tend to be very evident.

The work is arranged as follows.The first chapter con-sists of an introduction to the jew’s harp and to musicarchaeology as a field of research. It also has a descriptionof how information on the various finds in the databasewas collected. This section, which accounts for theEuropean countries in succession, also lists the finds. Thetables of this section (tables 1.1–1.7) are also tools forbrowsing and searching for finds from particular places orsites. (The entries in the Catalogue are arranged bychronological identificaton numbers, not by geography.)

The second chapter is about technology. Knowledge ofthe way the instruments were made and the materials usedto make them allows one to dig beneath the surface, tounderstand the makers’ intentions and capabilities. Simplyobserving without asking why the objects look like theydo cannot really lead us a deeper understanding of theinstrument.

Chapter three, which considers the typology of the harps,builds on the approach developed in the preceding chapter.The chapter starts with a general discussion of typology andclassification because these concepts provide the basis of thework.

Chapter four, on distribution, discusses the distribution ofthe finds in Europe, and how the prodution and trade of theitems were organized.

In the fifth and final chapter I approach the contexts of thefinds – i.e., their archaeological setting and, in a wider per-spective, their social and cultural significance. Here thesources are scarce, but by drawing analogies from varioussources, such as written and ethnographical materials, it ispossible to form ideas about the place and functions of theinstrument in medieval Europe.

Some important issues are covered in two dialoguesbetween two fictional scholars, Dr Harper and Dr Trumper,who specialize in questions relating to the archaeologicalmaterial on jew’s harps.Their backgrounds are fairly similar. Inone respect, both represent myself, although in reality I wouldnot always defend the positions of either.Their discussion is away of representing an internal dialogue of my own and ofestablishing positions and ideas.

One intention of this procedure is to break up the tradi-tional academic style. It is, however, not intended merely togive some breathing space from the rest of the text, but toprovide a means of approaching central questions in a differ-ent style. My purpose is to illustrate how theories, positionsand ideas are, to a greater or lesser extent, embodied in anindividual and so cannot avoid an element of the personaland subjective.Through the dialogues I am able to stage my

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reasoning, with Dr Harper and Dr Trumper as actors.The first dialogue follows chapter two. It considers the

question of when the instrument first appeared in Europe andprovides a history of the research relating to this question.Asthis issue also proves to be a question of ideology, or at leastreveals other, hidden intentions, Dr Harper and Dr Trumpersometimes turn to theoretical questions about how weapproach the past and how we write history. The dialogueprecedes the chapter on typology because the disagreementconcerning the early datings illustrates the importance ofworking with the finds typologically.

In the second dialogue, which follows chapter four, the twodoctors concern themselves with sources, methods, researchtraditions,disciplines and interdisciplinarity.One question theyconsider is whether the earliest history of the jew’s harp, forwhich no music or musical manuscripts are extant, representsa fundamentally different situation than is faced by other his-torical musicologists. What they have to say on this matterserves as an introduction to the last chapter, which presents adiscussion of the social and cultural position of the instrument.

Throughout the text there are references to theCatalogue, which lists the finds that provide the materialbasis for the thesis.The Catalogue is based on a database thathas been run continuously as finds were located in museumsand publications and relevant information was collected.The Catalogue is not identical to the database but consistsof information selected from it.The database is a workingtool, and will be actively used as such in the future, where-as the Catalogue is a finished entity with selected informa-tion relevant to the thesis.

Excavated music1

My hope is that this thesis will find its place within a musi-cological as well as an archaeological tradition. I also hopethat it will contribute to the field of study referred to asmusic archaeology. Broadly speaking, this is an interdiscipli-nary research area that seeks to explore problems related tomusic or musical instruments on the basis of archaeologicalmaterials.

There is a long tradition of studies of excavated musicalartifacts. Especially magnificent instruments, such as theScandinavian lurs of the Bronze Age (most of them found inthe 19th century, see Lund (ed.) 1986, Vol. 2) or theMesopotamian lyres from Ur (excavated early in the 20thcentury, Rimmer 1969; Schauensee 2002), have receivedmuch attention from archaeologists as well as musicologists.The Swedish archaeologist Cajsa S.Lund was among the firstto carry out systematic and continuing research on soundtools from European archaeological materials. She started tocompile inventories of materials in Scandinavian museumsfrom the early 1970s (Lund 1980) and was one of the pio-neers who contributed to the formation of the internation-al community of music archaeologists.

In 1977 the first step towards formalization of the subjectwas taken when the International Musicological Societyincluded a round table called “music and archaeology” at itsmeeting at Berkley.The gathering stimulated much response,and in 1981 various scholars encouraged by the meetingestablished the Study Group of Music Archaeology withinthe ICTM (International Council of Traditional Music).Since then there have been several conferences devoted tovarious topics (for example, Lund (ed.) 1986; Hickmann andHughes (eds) 1988; Homo-Lechner et al. (eds) 1994;Hickmann and Eichmann (eds) 2000, 2004; Hickmann,Laufs and Eichmann (eds) 2000); Hickmann, Kilmer andEichmann (eds) 2002).

There is no accepted narrow definition of music archaeol-ogy. Individuals representing different academic traditionsand perspectives have contributed to and maintained thesubject. However, there is no doubt that the majority ofmusic archaeologists give special attention to the ancient,classical “high cultures” of Mesopotamia, the Middle East,Egypt, China, etc.The research here benefits from a richnessof written and iconographical sources.

Music archaeology’s primary source material is the phys-ical remains of musical instruments and sound tools.However, it is always an advantage to include a variety ofdata and theory in the research in order to promote a broadand contextual understanding of the material objects.Scholars studying the classical cultures have more sourcesavailable to them than, for instance, those researching theScandinavian Palaeolithic. Nevertheless, there are alwayspossibilities, and the further back in time we go the moreneed there is for interdisciplinary approaches. An investiga-tion of the very earliest indications of musical artifacts, forinstance, would hardly rely on material artifacts alone butwould turn to anthropology (physical and social), biology,linguistics, psychology, acoustics and so forth (Lawergren1988,Wallin, Merker and Brown 2000).

Although the main efforts of music archaeology have cen-tred on antique and prehistorical materials, both medievaland post-medieval times have been the subject of researchprojects. Examples of the latter include studies of materialfrom the shipwrecks of the English 16th century warshipMary Rose (Lawson 1986) and the Swedish 17th centuryflagship Kronan (Lund 1986). In both cases the marinearchaeologists recovered several musical instruments, includ-ing chordophones, aerophones and idiophones.

The present study also demonstrates that music archaeolo-gy is concerned with more than just prehistorical times.Thereis no scarcity of non-archaeological sources from the periodto which the jew’s harp material belongs.Archaeology is thechosen approach not because it is the only required approachbut because it is a deliberate choice.

To rely on other types of source would result in otherconclusions. A departure from written documents, forinstance, would reveal only sparse indications of people

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1 Title inspired by Annemies Tamboer’s book Ausgegrabene Klänge (Tamboer 1999).

playing the jew’s harp. The archaeological sources bringforward a totally different situation. This is partly becausethose who wrote the documents were not interested in thisinsignificant artifact. But this also illustrates a more funda-mental point: that material culture gives a quite differentpicture of the societies under consideration.

A history of music which seeks out material culture ratherthan confining itself to written documents or “works of art”produces a wider perspective of the musical past that is gen-erally more oriented towards the culture of everyday life andof ordinary people. Furthermore, the mixed nature of mate-rial culture is suggestive of a wide range of activities. Anarchaeological approach to historical musicology presuppos-es a wide understanding of “music” and “musical instru-ments”. If we are not willing to open up to broader per-spectives, there is no point in this kind of research.

Music archaeology represents a refreshing contributionnot only to the history of music but to archaeology as well.Too often, the impression we get from archaeology is that thepast was silent. But is it possible to use archaeological mate-rial to explore the sounds of the past? The sounds themselvesare gone. So it would appear that an understanding of thesounds of the (distant) past must be based on conjecturalinterpretation alone, perhaps with a portion of imaginationand personal experience. From one point of view we shouldadmit that there are some major problems here. There arefew data, and the very scarce sources with any relevance offervery little for an understanding of music, its functions andmeanings. From another point of view, archaeologists do notalways construct their knowledge of the past on much safergrounds. As the Norwegian archaeologist Arne B. Johansenreminds us, archaeologists can excavate “neither social organ-isation nor economy, nor types of arrows, … they are asexcavated as a flute sound” (cited in Lund 1998: 17). Socialorganisation is not present in the archaeological record,wait-ing to be recovered.The critical point is that artifacts alwaysneed to be interpreted.For archaeology, as for all the human-ities, knowledge is always based on interpretations that arefounded, to a greater or lesser extent, on an input of imagi-nation and experience.

Regardless of such philosophical questions, one reasonfor a somewhat sceptical or indifferent attitude from gen-eral archaeology towards music archaeology (Lund 1998) isperhaps a tendency to see music as a notably modern phe-nomenon and to believe that it is impossible to work withmusic as long as it is not available in written form.Moreover, archaeologists often fail to see that music is inte-grated with a range of practical and ritual functions.

The tendency to believe that a “real” archaeology of musicis impossible also accounts for various other uses of the termmusic archaeology. One example is a “meta-understanding” ofthe term, expressed either in accordance with Foucault’s con-ception of archaeology (Tomlinsson 1993), or – less seriously– as a prehistory of music in our minds or similar (New Age).Another is that the term denotes the history of music on thebasis of written music that is physically fragmented or hidden

and antiquated. This use of the term conforms to a morecommon understanding of music as applied by traditional his-torical musicology.

Yet, to carry out actual research should be more importantthan to defend disciplines and terms. Whether we use theterm music archaeology, archaeomusicology, archaeo-organology orpalaeo-organology has only minor consequences. What wechoose to call our field of study is less important than thequestions we ask and the issues we deal with.

The central issue of the present study is a classificationand typological analysis of jew’s harps. This is indeed farfrom sounds and music. Nevertheless, I feel that my sourcematerial is excavated sounds.

No one, of course, would claim that one can literallyexcavate sounds.The 14th century sound of a 14th centu-ry jew’s harp, for instance, is forever gone because of thesimple but important fact that the 14th century is gone.When we listen to “authentic” or “reconstructed” sounds,we listen as modern humans.What we hear will always befiltered through our modern ways of perception, whetherculturally, individually or emotionally.

But irrespective of the impossibility of making the pastre-sound today, I would still dig for the jew’s harp’s “sounds,their settings and significance”, to cite Shelemay’s defini-tion of soundscapes (2001). I am interested in the totalsound environment (Schafer 1994) of the medieval castlesand other places where people played their harps. I aminterested in the physical, social and even cognitive sound-scapes of which the jew’s harps were part. Indeed, were itnot for this interest in excavated sounds, I would not spendtime collecting and classifying corroded and fossilized ironobjects.

The jew’s harp – some essential backgroundConstruction, acoustics and playing techniqueThe jew’s harp is a mouth-resonated musical instrumentconsisting of an elastic lamella (tongue, spring) which iseither joined to, or part of, a frame.The sound is producedby the vibration of the lamella between the two parallelarms of the frame.The turbulence this produces is essential,according to one current explanation, because it generatesa feasible harmonic spectrum from which the player artic-ulates particular overtones (Ledang 1972).The articulationand the amplifying of tones are complicated processes thatinvolve the player’s oral cavity, tongue, cranium, throat andstomach.

The lamella has one fundamental, and only the corre-sponding overtones (partials) can be used to play melodies.This is analogous to other overtone instruments, such as themouth bow.With the jew’s harp the fundamental serves asa drone.

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The jew’s harp is found in a remarkable variety of formsand shapes, accompanied by different playing techniques,which include many ways of initiating the vibration of thelamella. Especially in Asia there is a diversity of instruments,made of organic materials such as bamboo, palm wood, ivoryand bone, but also metals.This thesis is concerned with theEuropean version of the instrument. In his pioneering arti-cle on the development and typology of the instrument in aworldwide perspective, Curt Sachs (1917) referred to thisversion as Bügelmaultrommel (bow-shaped jew’s harp), asopposed to Rahmenmaultrommel (frame jew’s harp), which isfound throughout Asia. Furthermore, he regarded theEuropean forms heteroglottic, which means that the lamella ismade separately from the frame, as opposed to the idioglottictypes found in Asia, where the lamella and frame are madefrom the same piece of material.

Sachs’ typology, which was buildt exclusively on mor-phological criteria, followed an evolutionary scheme,where the earliest and simplest forms were made fromorganic materials. According to him, the jew’s harp origi-nated in Southeast Asia and spread slowly eastwards andnorthwards, accompanied by a development from simple tocomplex forms. The latest forms were the metal versionsthat appeared in Europe in the High Middle Ages.

Geneviève Dournon-Taurelle’s thesis on the jew’s harp(1975) approached the instrument from a worldwide eth-nological perspective. She included functional and musicalfeatures, and integrated form, material and function in atypological classification.This does not have to correspondto a historical development. The same ideas were used inthe catalogue of the jew’s harps in the Musée de l’homme inParis (Dournon-Taurelle and Wright 1978).The Europeanversion corresponds to their type à languette hors du cadre,where the lamella is longer than, and sticks out from, theframe.

The bow-shaped and heteroglottic jew’s harp found inEurope is played by pressing the frame firmly against the frontteeth, but so that the teeth do not prevent the free vibration ofthe lamella.The lamella is then plucked directly by the player’sfinger (or, rarely, by the player’s tongue) at the tip on the freeend of the instrument.

Classification of the jew’s harp has been a matter of dis-pute. Hornbostel and Sachs group the instrument as aplucked idiophone in their established classification system(1914) because of the primary sound-producing impulse ofthe lamella. Frederick Crane (1968) and Ola Kai Ledang(1972) stress the importance of the turbulent air stream cre-ated by the vibration of the lamella between the arms.Theiropinion is that the instrument should, rather, be classified asan aerophone.

Laurence Picken (1975: 584–5) holds that the bambooinstruments from Eastern Asia are made with considerable

sophistication – with an extremely precise adjustment ofthe lamella – and that they should therefore be regarded asin a class of their own.“In their neglect of this refinement,the iron and steel Jew’s harps of Central, South and WestAsia, and of Europe as well, must be regarded as degener-ate” (ibid.).

Geographical distributionThe distribution of the jew’s harp is now worldwide. It isindigenous to the Eurasian landmass, Southeast Asia,Polynesia and Oceania. The established theory, derivedfrom Sachs (1917) is that it originally appeared in SoutheastAsia and Polynesia and only later spread to Europe. Theinstrument then found its way to Africa and the Americasthrough European contacts during the 16th century andafter.

The jew’s harp is referred to by a remarkable variety ofnames. Leonard Fox (1988) has recorded more than 250 dif-ferent names from around the world, but the list shouldprobably be much longer. European names include guimbarde(French), scacciapensieri (Italian), Maultrommel (German), birim-bao (Spanish), mungige (Swedish), mundharpe (Danish), doromb(Hungarian), drombulja (Serbian) and vargan (Russian). InLatin the instrument has been referred to as crembalum and,possibly, trombula. Variants of trump and trompa seem to beamong the earliest terms used in European texts, found indocuments dating back to the late Middle Ages (Crane2003b). However, it is often difficult to clarify which termsreferred to the jew’s harp and which referred to other instru-ments in the verious sources.

HistoryThe origin and earliest history of the jew’s harp remainshrouded in darkness. It is probably a very ancient instru-ment.Very plausibly, the forms made of organic materialsare the oldest, as is commonly believed.The manufacture ofsuch objects would not demand skills in metal technology.The earliest pieces to have been discovered come fromMongolia. One from Xiongnu2 dates from around the firstcentury BC to the first century AD.3The other is from nearChifeng, Inner Mongolia, and dates from the eight to theeighth fifth century BC.4 Of the heteroglottic metal harps,the oldest so far are two specimens from Japan, these wereexcavated from archaeological settings that place them inthe Heian period, or 1000 AD (Tadagawa 1996).

Throughout the ages and continents the jew’s harp hasbeen connected with a variety of functions and meanings.Today it is used mostly as a folkloristic melody-instrument. Insome places in Asia the jew’s harp is a “speech-tone” instru-ment, used ritually to disguise the voice (Pugh-Kitingan1977, 1984). Its connection with shamanism is well known,especially in Siberia.

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2 Kaogu Xiebao 1974: 140, fig. 8 and plate 173 Frederick Crane, pers. comm.4 Ibid

European history and archaeologyAs this thesis will show, the earliest archaeological and writ-ten sources from Europe go back to the 13th and 14th cen-turies, suggesting that the jew’s harp was well established inthe High Middle Ages.

Professional artisans were already making the instrumentin the 13th century, as attested by master’s marks that arepunched into the frame of some jew’s harps. From the 16thcentury there is written documentation of mass produc-tion. The best known production centres were Molln inUpper Austria, Boccorio in Italy and Birmingham,England. The production served large markets, bothdomestic and overseas.

Iconography also demonstrates that the jew’s harp was acommon European instrument. Frederick Crane has pub-lished a book presenting iconographic material fromEurope and America (Crane 2003b). The depictionsinclude seals, watermarks, manuscripts, paintings and sculp-tures.The earliest visual representations appear in the mid-14th century, but from the 16th and 17th centuries thematerial is especially rich, including paintings by Dutch andFlemish painters like Burgkmair, Brueghel and Vrancx(Crane op. cit.; Boone 1972, 1986).The Benelux countriesare probably the region with most iconographic material,but there are sources from almost all European countries.The iconographic sources will frequently be referred tothroughout the thesis, especially in the chapters on typolo-gy and context.

Ethnographic sources will also frequently be consulted.Among these are the works of Reidar Sevåg (1970, 1973)on the jew’s harp in Norwegian folklore, and the work ofBirgitte Geiser (1980) on Swiss material.

Turning to the archaeology of the instrument, there havebeen some regional studies – from Sweden (Rydbeck1968), Switzerland (Meyer and Oesch 1972), Ireland(Buckley 1986), Hungary (Repiszky 1996) and Scandinavia(Kolltveit 1996) – and these will be introduced in the sec-tion “Collecting material” below. Some authors have treat-ed jew’s harp finds in an international perspective, but thereis no publication that covers Europe as a whole. However,one book includes archaeological jew’s harps among othermedieval instruments in a Europe-wide context. This isExtant Medieval Musical Instruments by Frederick Crane(1972), which lists 79 jew’s harps from archaeological con-texts.

Crane, drawing on finds from England, the Netherlandsand France, suggested that the jew’s harp existed in Europeas far back as Roman times. This is almost one and a halfmillennia earlier than was proposed in the previous theory,derived from Sachs, who asserted that the instrumentappeared in Europe in the 14th century (Sachs 1913/1964:255; 1917: 196). J. V. S. Megaw (1968) also agreed withCrane on such an early origin of the jew’s harp in Europe.In 1976 Crane and Megaw’s position was challenged by theDutch archaeologist J.Ypey,who denied the reliability of theearly datings, and asserted that in Europe the instrument was

a much later phenomenon (Ypey 1976). He argued that theEnglish and Dutch finds had not been excavated with strati-graphical or other relevant data that allowed a competentdating.According to Ypey, the oldest safely dated Europeanfinds are from the 13th and 14th centuries.

The debate over the introduction of the instrument intoEurope has continued since Crane’s and Ypey’s contributionsin the 1970s. The individual finds and groups of finds thatprovided the basis for the core of the debate will be intro-duced in the following pages, under the countries in ques-tion. Moreover, the debate will be subjected to close scrutinyin Dialogue one: “When did the jew’s harp become estab-lished in Europe?” (pages 51–64)

RevivalRecent years have seen a revival of interest in the jew’sharp. CDs, festivals, books and journals, including theVierundzwanzigsteljahrschrift der InternationalenMaultrommelvirtuosengenossenschaft (VIM) and the KoukinJournal, are devoted to the instrument.This is a worldwidetendency, but some communities of jew’s harpists havebeen motivating forces in the development, notably inSiberia (Yakutia), Austria, the USA, the Netherlands andNorway. The international jew’s harp festival in Rauland,Norway, in 2002 saw the foundation of the InternationalJew’s Harp Society (IJHS), which issues its own journal.

Collecting materialThe material on which this thesis is based consists of archae-ological jew’s harps – that is, finds from established archaeo-logical excavations and chance finds.A chance find is under-stood here as a find that has come to light in any other waythan intentional excavation. It has been appropriate to con-sider both categories, as is normal with most archaeologicalmaterials, which are usually a mixture of various finds.Common to the jew’s harps considered in the study is thatthey were found in the earth.

It has not been possible to assign much of the material toa precise time period as a large number of the specimenshave proved difficult to date. However, there is no doubtthat most are medieval and post-medieval, belonging to theperiod from about 1200 to 1700. As a rule I have notincluded instruments with a confirmed 19th or 20th cen-tury origin.

The material is of a mixed nature, consisting of findsacquired from various sources. Some of the finds have notpreviously been published, while others are well known inthe archaeological or organological literature. Sometimesthe information and documentation for the objects arebased on my own studies in museums and archaeologicalinstitutions, while for others the information comes frompublications only.The documentary evidence in publishedsources varies greatly. Some publications do not give themuseum or possessor of the finds, and in some of these casesthe possessor is still unknown to me. Furthermore, publica-

5

tions provide various kinds of documentation of the appear-ance of finds, their provenance, the details of excavation andthe like.

I have used different methods to collect information onthe material: searches in published sources, such as mono-graphs or journals; direct enquiries to museums andarchaeological institutions; searches and activities on theinternet; and, finally, by following up suggestions from col-leagues, museum staff and others. The work of gatheringinformation about a group of artifacts from numeroussources and countries has produced documentary evidencethat I find intrinsically valuable. I consider the process ofcollecting this information to be an important task, and notonly because it provides the foundation for my own analy-ses.The resulting Catalogue should be regarded as a majorpart of the present work.

It has been a challenge to arrive at a general overviewbecause of the extent of the geographical area and theamount of archaeological activity that is being undertaken.As mentioned before, this is a work in progress, with noclaim to completeness. It is impossible to keep fully abreastof the field at any given time, and to attempt any final con-clusions would certainly be a mistake. In the Catalogue Ihave listed all archaeological finds of jew’s harps from Europethat are presently known to me. There are certainly moreharps around, and new ones are continually being excavated.

The information has been collected with varying atten-tion to different parts of Europe. Some countries have beeninvestigated with care, by searching in the literature and bysending letters and e-mails of enquiry to museums. In othercases only limited efforts to acquire material have beenmade.A consequence of this somewhat inconsistent cover-age will very probably be that, as a basis for analysis, thematerial suffers from problems of imbalance and unrepre-sentativeness. Having said that, my analyses and discussionsbear these problems in mind. However, I find it relevant todescribe in more detail how the finds have been locatedand the information about them gathered. The sectionbelow deals with the regions and countries of Europe insuccession. It also describes earlier surveys and studies ofarchaeological jew’s harp finds, and is therefore also a his-tory of research on the topic.

The Nordic CountriesMy own MA thesis (Kolltveit 1996) is based on 144 findsfrom Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) whichI learned about through published sources and letters ofenquiry to museums and archaeological institutions. Themain scope of the thesis was to elucidate the time of theinstrument’s introduction into Scandinavia.The conclusionwas that no dated finds are earlier than the 13th century.Despite some possibly earlier pieces, it is most reasonable toconclude that the instrument became established in theperiod after 1200.

In the Catalogue of the present work I have entered 170Nordic finds; these comprise the specimens listed in my MA

thesis together with others located through further corre-spondence with museums and institutions in Scandinavia,Finland, and Iceland. There is much medieval archaeologygoing on in this region, and I suspect there are more findsthan I have been able to trace.

The Catalogue includes 30 finds from Denmark. Themost important source for these has been TennaKristensen’s work on medieval musical instruments(Kristensen 1994). Her work was an undergraduate thesison medieval archaeology, completed at the University ofAarhus, that surveyed musical instruments in Scandinavianarchaeology. She lists 79 jew’s harps from the Scandinaviancountries, of which 14 are from Denmark.The thesis alsobriefly discusses the instrument’s morphology and thesocial context of the finds.

Another source for the Danish finds is Gorm Jessen, ofSlagelse, who has researched archaeological jew’s harps inDenmark and Skåne.The quality of the documentation inhis still unpublished material is exceptional high. I amgrateful to Mr Jessen for sharing some of his material andknowledge with me.

The number of finds recorded for Sweden is 118, whichis the third largest country count for this category of arti-facts. What is remarkable about the Swedish finds is thatalmost all of them have been excavated by archaeologists,although most come from old excavations. Unfortunately,these finds are usually dated inaccurately.

My information on the Swedish finds has been gatheredfrom publications and through direct enquiries to archaeo-logical institutions. In addition, the Swedish music archae-ologist Cajsa S. Lund, Åkarp, kindly allowed me access toher material collected during the Swedish project “Riks-inventeringen”, which was undertaken in the 1970s. Thiswas a comprehensive survey of musical instruments andsound tools initiated by the Musikmuseet (Music Museum)in Stockholm (Reimers 1979). The Riksinventeringenmaterial consists of about 60 jew’s harps, information onwhich is kept in a card catalogue.The report on jew’s harpsfrom the project (Reimers 1977) lists the finds and discuss-es problems of forms, materials of manufacture and datings.It concludes that the Swedish material dates to the periodabout 1200–1600.

Monica Rydbeck reached the same conclusion in an ear-lier, well-known article that considered Swedish jew’s harpsfound in archaeological excavations (Rydbeck 1968). Thearticle includes around 35 items from Swedish castles,monasteries and cities. At the time of publication as manyas three-quarters of the finds were from castles and monas-teries, with one-third of the total found in cities. Like otherscholars, Rydbeck expressed regret that the finds from cas-tles and monasteries in particular could only be dated with-in wide ranges of time, following the period of existence ofthe sites from which they came.

Apart from these contributions treating Sweden as awhole, one article by Waldemar Falck (1974) introducesseven excavated pieces from the Hansa port of Visby, in

6

7

Gotland. These were dated stratigraphically to the periodfrom the 13th/14th century to the 16th century.Additionally, the archaeological institution in Visby5 andthe Riksinventeringen project have reported four morepieces, bringing the number of items from Visby to eleven.Unfortunately, all the Visby harps had been lost when Itravelled in Sweden in 1996.6 This illustrates the impor-tance of documentation and publication of archaeologicalmaterial; without Falck’s article and the Riksinventeringensurvey we would know little of the jew’s harps from Visby.

In 1996 and 1997 I visited the largest museums inSweden and had the opportunity to study several of theSwedish finds in detail. I visited museums and archaeolog-ical institutions in Malmö, Lund, Växjö, Jönköping,Stockholm and Uppsala.

Norway is the country I have investigated most thorough-ly. As only a small number of Norwegian museums havearchaeological material, it is fairly easy to get an overview ofthe catalogued finds in the museums. Moreover, an obviouscourse for me has been to draw on personal relationships,whether with museum staff, jew’s harp players or others.

I have been able to identify 23 harps, of which only sevenare from archaeological excavations.With one exception, theexcavated pieces are from the three largest cities, Oslo,Bergen and Trondheim.The rest are casual finds with essen-tially no contextual documentation.Three surface finds fromLom (nos. 134–136) resemble traditional jew’s harps fromrecent times. However, their origin is not known, and sincethey were found in the ground I have found it difficult toexclude them from the selection.

One entry in the Catalogue (no. 144) refers to a descrip-tion from 1643 by the Danish antiquarian Ole Worm. Hetells of a jew’s harp found in a burial urn near the town ofMandal, in Vest-Agder county.The description indicates apre-Christian jew’s harp. However, it has not been possibleto trace the instrument itself either in Denmark or inNorway.

It has been suggested that some objects from excavationsin Norway of sites of Viking Age are jew’s harps. Amongthese are two heavily corroded iron objects fromGrønneberg, in the county of Tjølling in Vestfold.7 Thesewere tentatively identified as jew’s harps in 1974 (Løken1974), and later Lund also interpreted them as possible jew’sharps (Lund 1974, 1981, 1984/1987). In connection withmy MA thesis I analysed the objects and had x-ray photo-graphs taken.8 I also analysed a similar ninth century ironobject from Berger, in the county of Åmot in Hedmark.9The analyses gave no indication that these objects werejew’s harps (Kolltveit 1996: 41), and the x-ray imagesshowed no signs of the point where the lamella would havebeen attached to the frame. For the purposes of the presentstudy, therefore, they will not be regarded as jew’s harps andthey do not appear in the Catalogue.

The material from Finland is small but higly interesting.An article published in 1978 describes three finds from thebishop’s castle of Kustö (Kuusisto) (nos. 290–292;Taavitsainen 1978).This is the only printed work known tome that reports jew’s harps from an archaeological settingin Finland.

After a visit to the museum in Turku (Åbo) Castle I wastold about four more Finnish finds.10 Furthermore, onepiece excavated in Åbo in 2005 (no. 830), is included,bringing the total number to eight. I have not seen or stud-ied any of these specimens apart from one I saw exhibitedin Turku Castle. Nor have I attempted to determinewhether other archaeological finds have been made inFinland.

As for Iceland, jew’s harps are unknown to theorganological literature. I sent an enquiry letter to theNational Museum in Reykjavik, and I got informationabout one excavated specimen from the farm site atStóraborg on the South coast (no. 819; Snæsdottir 1991:24–5). I have not been able to check further for unpub-lished or unknown material from Iceland.

5 Riksantikvarieämbätet, UV-Visby.6 Information from Riksantikvarieämbätet, UV-Visby.7 The University Museum of National Antiquities (Oldsaksamlingen), Oslo, acc. no. C 16490.8 The x-ray photographs were made by Torunn Klokkernes at the Conservation Department of the University Museum of National Antiquities

(Oldsaksamlingen), Oslo.9 The University Museum of National Antiquities (Oldsaksamlingen), Oslo, acc. no. C 1345.10 Antti Suna, Museiverket, Turku, pers. comm.

Table 1.1: The finds from the Nordic Countries

Region Place Site Id. No.DenmarkFredriksborg County Store Valby Farm no. 3 13

Farm no. 17 14Fyn County Sandhagen (Langeland) House VII:A 7Greenland Near Nuuk Hope Colony 150København County Dragør (Amager) Stakhaven 16–18

København Holmens kanal - Laxegade 15Ribe County Ribe Korsebrødregården 6Roskilde County Roskilde Algade 10

Hersegade 9Sønderjylland County Haderslev Møllestrømmen 5

8

Storstrøms County Moseby Moseby 8Vejle County Horsens Fugholm Street 1

Kolding Vestergade 2Vestergade 20-22 3Rendebanen, Vestergade 4

Vest-Sjælland County Halsskov (near Korsør) Tårnborg Manor 815Holbæk Ahlgade 49 800

Århus County Emborg Øm Monastery 11, 12

FinlandTurku ja Pori Åbo (Turku) Cathedral Park (Domkyrkoskvären) 287–8

Åbo Castle 287–8Kuusisto (Kustö), near Kaarina Kuusisto Castle 286, 289–92

IcelandSu!urland (Southland) Rangárvallasysla Sróraborg 819

NorwayAust-Agder Setesdal: Bygland Austad søndre: Viki 143

Setesdal: Bykle Strond (by Bossvatn) 505Nedre Dysje (by Bossvatn) 506

Hedmark Finnskogen 138Hordaland Bergen Bryggen: Building belonging to 133

GullskogårdenNord-Trøndelag Snåsa 30 m north of Snåsa Church 635Oppland Dovre Vigenstad 334

Fåberg, Vingrom Øvre Gilberg 137Garmo, Lom 136Lom 134–5Vardal (Gjøvik county) Bråstadsetra (summer pasture) 390Øystre Slidre Langedal 824

Oslo Ekeberg Jomfrubråtveien 140–1Gamlebyen (The Old City) Mindets tomt 139

Sør-Trøndelag Trondheim Erkebispegården 147Erling Skakkesgate 1 130Folkebibliotekstomta 132Televerkstomta 131

Telemark Gransherad Lie 142Vinje 504

Vest-Agder Near Mandal “Hollojen” 144

SwedenBohuslän Inlands Södre County Ragnhildsholmen Castle 107Gotland Roma Timans 96

Visby Botanical Garden 95Kruset 14 86–7Kv. Priorn 4 85Kv. Residenset 6 89Kv. Residenset 5 and 6 90Kv. St. Michael 9 91Kv. Systemet 4 94Kv. Säcken 7 88Kv. Tunnbindaren 1 92–3

Lappland Jokkmokk: Kvikkjokk Silververket 19A 129Närke Laxå County Ramundeboda Monastery 108–10

Örebro Kv. Bodarna no. 6 111Öland Borgholm Borgholm Castle 83–4Östergötland Alvastra Alvastra Monastery 98–101

Vadstena Vadstena Birgittine Convent 102–4Kv. Hotellet 106Unknown (Vadstena) 105

Vreta Vreta Monastery Church 97Skåne Falsterbo Falsterbo Castle 19–20

Helsingborg Kärnan Södra 3 502Ruuth 44 503

Kävlinge (county), Dagstorp Parish Huvudstorp 816Lund Kv. Altona 7 53

Ireland and United KingdomFor the Republic of Ireland my starting point has been anarticle by Ann Buckley (1986), which includes descriptionsof 27 harps. Most of these were found in excavations of the1970s and 1980s. For more details of the harps and the cir-cumstances in which they were found I consulted pub-lished excavation reports. No steps were taken to acquiredetails of material from more recent excavations in Ireland.

The locations of the Irish finds, which are castles, prior-ies and dwelling houses, are scattered throughout the coun-try. The material dates from the period between the 14thand 18th centuries, with the majority of finds attributed tothe 16th and 17th centuries.11 With one exception theIrish harps are made of iron and, typically, they have a

rounded or oval shape to the bow.Data from United Kingdom indicate an earlier introduc-

tion of the jew’s harps than in Ireland, but not much earli-er. A number of articles on “the antiquity of jew’s harps”which appeared some decades ago in Archaeologia Cantiana(Elliston-Erwood 1943, 1947; Grove 1955, 1956) suggestedthat the instrument existed in England in Saxon and perhapseven in Roman times.The authors introduced several findsfrom archaeological settings, of which the majority wereundated surface finds, some with proximity to Saxon orRoman sites. Four pieces (nos. 178–181) from Surrey andKent are notably interesting because they were found inSaxon cemeteries. However, only one of these (no. 180,Sarre) is recorded as found in a grave.This single find can

9

Apotekaren 50Kv. Färgaren 57Helgonabacken 55Gyllenkronas allé 51Prennegatan 59Kv. St. Botulf 2 54Kv. St. Clemens 9 58Kv. St. Laurentius (Stortorget 110) 52St. Peter 27 56Unknown (Lund) 46–9, 60

Malmö Adelsgatan 35B 45Kv. Gyllenstjärna 44Kv. Humle 38Nils Kuntze’s house 35Kv. Rundelen 37Kv. St. Gertrud 41–3Kv. Söderport 40Thomsons väg 34Kv. Tranan 39Kv. von Conow 36

Skanör Skanör Castle 21–4Skanör (city) Kv. Haren 26

Market Place 25Svedala (county) Lindholmen Castle 27–33

Småland Eksjö town Kv. Trasten (Ärlan) 81Island in lake Bolmen Piksborg Castle 61–5Jönköping Kv. Galeasen 73–5

Kv. Gladan 76Kv. Harven 77–8, 145Kv. Hemmet 79–80, 146

Kalmar Kläckeberga Church 82Kronoberg Kronoberg Castle 66–72

Stockholm Stockholm City Kv. Thalia (Dramaten) 112Helgeandsholmen 113–15

Södermanland Nynäshamn County, Sorunda Parish Fållnäs, House II 817Uppland Sigtuna The Dominician Monastery 117

Kv. Koppardosan 116Uppsala Kv. Disa 121–2

Kv. Kransen 119–20Kv. Pantern 124Kv. Rådhuset 118Kv. Rådstugan 123

Västmanland Norberg Lapphyttan blast furnace 125–6Västerås County Lista 127

Östergötland Norrköping (county) Borgs säteri (Borg manor) 818Ångermanland Ådals-liden County Ställverket 128

11 One of the pieces mentioned in Buckley’s article, from Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, UK (no. 429), is dated to the 13th/14th centuries.

hardly be used as evidence for such an early appearance ofthe instrument in view of the soil disturbance often foundin cemeteries and the lack of stratigraphical records for theexcavation itself, which took place as long ago as 1863.However, the articles mentioned above are frequentlyreferred to and have produced confusion about the chrono-logical significance of jew’s harps. New finds of the sametype (copper alloy, circular bow) have proved to be of latemedieval and post-medieval date.

Apart from these, British finds reported in the literatureinclude pieces from Winchester (no. 282) and Fast Castle,Berwickshire (no. 381), which have been informativelydescribed in archaeological publications by Graeme Lawson(1990, 2001). Some jew’s harps have also been reported fromexcavations in medieval London (Wardle 1998).

When I started my work I knew of remarkably few jew’sharps from the United Kingdom, so I decided to contactmuseums with enquiries. To select relevant museums Ibegan with the internet, but after a while I realized that theelectronic sources I was relying on (MuseumsNet and othersites) did not cover all the museums for this area of research.I ended up by gathering addresses from the MuseumsYearbook, the printed publication of the MuseumsAssociation (Wright (ed.) 1997), which contains a compre-hensive directory of museums in the British Isles. In 1997I sent letters of enquiry to approximately 300 museums,mainly those with archaeological collections. I received

replies from about 180, or 60 per cent. About 35 institu-tions replied that they had jew’s harps from archaeologicalsettings in their collections. In 1997 and 1998 I made twojourneys to England, Scotland and Wales to study a selec-tion of the material.

To summarize, the material from the UK consists of thefinds I encountered during my museum survey togetherwith other finds for which there are published accounts inthe literature. The total of 173 recorded pieces representsthe largest quantity for a single country. This is probablydue to the large number of undated chance finds, especial-ly jew’s harps dug up by amateur metal detector users. Mostof these are cast from copper alloys and typically have a cir-cular shape to the bow.The claimed Saxon harps referredto above are of this type. Most of the metal-detected piecesare found in central and southern parts of England.

The banks of the River Thames are a popular site forusers of metal detectors. Known as “mudlarks”, these arti-fact collectors who search the mud of the river foreshore atlow tide have uncovered quantities of objects from variousperiods, including jew’s harps. Although some have endedup in the antiquities dealers’ markets, many are now in thesafekeeping of museums.The Museum of London has some16 pieces from the Thames foreshore (nos. 205–221), whilethe Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, Oxford, pos-sesses eight pieces yielded up from the same place (nos.264–271).

10

Table 1.2: The finds from United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland

Region Place Site Id. No.

The Republic of IrelandCo. Clare Ballycally Shannon Airport (“Thady's Fort”) 456Co. Cork Dunboy Dunboy Castle 441–2

Glanworth Glanworth Castle 443Co. Dublin Ballyman Artisan area near church site 428Co. Galway Clontuskert Clontuskert Priory 435–8Co. Kilkenny Kells Kells Priory 444–50Co. Limerick Lough Gur Knockadoon: Site J of a 451

17th century housePicnic Area II 452Car Park Area II 453

Co. Meath Nevinstown Burial Mound, Site I 454Trim Castle Fosse West, layer C 457–8

Co. Monaghan Unprovenanced 393Co. Tipperary Drumlummin House site 439–40

Rochestown 455Unprovenanced (Ireland) 459

United KingdomAberdeenshire (Scotland) Rattray (parish) Rattray Castle 365Argyllshire (Scotland) Isle of Islay Loch Finlaggan 380

Isle of Lismore Achandun Castle 377–8Near Tarbert Castle Sween 379

Bedfordshire Bedford Bedford Castle 284High Street (?) 285

Chicheley, northeast of Newport Pagnell 367Leighton Buzzard Grove Priory 248–50Unprovenanced 251

Berwickshire (Scotland) Near Coldingham Fast Castle: Lower Courtyard 381Buckinghamshire Addington 797

Chenies 366Cambridgeshire Near Cambridge 782–3

11

Unprovenanced 778–81Cheshire Near Meols Near Dove Point 190

Unprovenanced 382Cumbria Carlisle 391–2Devon Brixham Berry Head Fort 661Dorset West Stafford 419East Lothian (Scotland) Dunbar 410Essex Colchester Balkerne Lane 192

Unknown (Colchester) 191, 193Waltham Waltham Abbey 198

Glamorgan (Wales) 4.5 km NW of Barry Whitton 280Llantrithyd Area St. Hillary 276–9

Gloucestershire Bristol Bridewell Street 389Unknown (Bristol) 388

Gloucester St. Owens: Southgate Street 272–3Unprovenanced (Gloucester?) 274

Hampshire Near Fleet Odiham Castle (King John's Castle) 259Otterbourne 425Winchester City Bridge 283

Paradise Wall: Cathedral Green 282Hertfordshire Near Watford Battlers Green 242Isle of Man Castletown Castle Rushen 369Isle of Wight Fishbourne Beach at Fishbourne 370

Mersely Down 371Kent Canterbury Stour Street 374

Unprovenanced (Canterbury?) 373Egerton 182, 184Egerton-Charing 183West of Erith Lesnes Abbey 195Ditton Priory Grove 196Near Eynsford Lullingstone Villa 177Faversham Maison Diew 240Near Maidstone East Sutton 187Otford 7 Tudor Drive 185–6

9 Tudor Drive 188Rochester Between Corn Exchange and 794

Corporation StreetSarre Sarre Saxon Cemetery 180Sibertswold (Shepherdswell) Sibertswold Anglo-Saxon Cemetery 181Unprovenanced (Kent) 423, 795, 796

Lincolnshire Burton 798Dorrington 424Hogsthorpe 422Lincoln Broadgate East; Area 1 232

Middlesex London Shooters Hill 189Bankside (Thames foreshore) 205Billingsgate lorry park 224–5Bull Wharf (Thames foreshore) 214Cheapside: Wood Street 194Custom House Society 222Eltham: Kenwood Road 243Fenchurch Street: Corys Site 202Finsbury, Islington, Hackney: 199Worship StreetOld Queen Street 201Queen Victoria Street: 223, 227Baynard HouseQueenhylthe or Southbank 206(Thames foreshore)Queenhylthe-Southbank Bridge 209(Thames foreshore) Southwark Bridge (Thames foreshore) 207Thames foreshore 210–13, 215–21,(Find spot unknown) 264–71Thames Street 203Upper Thames Street: Sunlight Wharf 228Upper Thames Street: Trig Lane 22668 Upper Thames Street: Vintners’ Place 23069 Upper Thames Street: Vintners’ Hall 229Unknown (London) 200, 231

The Low Countries Five jew’s harps from Niemegen, the Netherlands (nos.662–666),were published by Crane (1972:22),who wrote thatthey most likely dated from the Roman era, from the first tothe fourth century.The reason for this suggestion was that themuseum holding these artifacts12 presumed that they had orig-inated from Roman graves in the vicinity.This early dating hasbeen repeated by later authors (e.g. Rimmer 1981: 242, 245).However, according to Ypey (1976:216), since the objects haveno provenance they cannot be dated from their context.

Ypey’s article referred to several finds, some of which hadbeen published earlier but with others new to the litera-ture, such as examples from Rossum (no. 686) and Vianen(no. 692). Five pieces are described in a book on archaeo-logical excavations in Amsterdam (Baart et al. 1977).These

finds, which are of various types, were recovered from lay-ers deposited between the 14th and 17th centuries. Morerecently eight iron harps, all from the 14th century, havebeen reported from Amersfoort (Tamboer 1999).

Hubert Boone’s publications (1972, 1986) give anaccount of the instrument’s historical and ethnological sta-tus in the Netherlands and Belgium. He reports that icono-graphical records go back to the 15th century, while writ-ten and archaeological records are available for the 14thcentury and onwards. In his 1972 publication Boone lists68 jew’s harps, representing a mix of ethnographical andarchaeological materials. It is difficult to determine fromthe list which of the harps were excavated and which werenot. I have included those items from Boone’s list which Ihave been able to identify positively as archaeological finds.

12

Montgomeryshire (Wales) Montgomery [English Civil War Battlefeld] 383Norfolk Near King’s Lynn: Middleton 149North Hertfordshire Unprovenanced 375–6Northamptonshire Northampton Black Lion Hill 238Northern Ireland, Co. Antrim Carrickfergus Irish Quarter 429, 432–4

Market Place 430–1Nottinghamshire Near Bingham 774

Unprovenanced 773Oxfordshire Near Diddcott Harwell 246

Near Bicester Middleton Stoney 244–5Woodperry 252

Perthshire (Scotland) Perth Meal Vennel 368High Street 408–9

Portchester Portchester Castle 241Shropshire Wroxeter City 239Staffordshire Stafford Stafford Castle 261–2

Stoke-on-Trent: Lightwood Langton Lightwood Road 247Suffolk Dunwich 234–5

Mildenhall 260Near Aldeburgh: Iken Meadow Cottage 233Sutton Hoo Settlement site 385Walberswick Walberswick church ruin 236Wangford 197Woodbrigde? 384

Surrey Guildford Guildown Saxon Cemetery 179Near Leatherhead Hawks Hill (Saxon cemetery) 178

Sussex Chichester East Row no. 1 148Pulborough “The Old House” 793

Warwickshire Hunningham, near Leamington Spa St Margaret's Church 372Warwick 421

Wigtownshire (Scotland) Whithorn Whithorn Priory 237Wiltshire Yatesbury, near Cherhill 255

Chilton Foliat 256Edington 253Mildenhall, near Marlborough 254Near Salisbury Clarendon Palace 275Upavon 263

Yorkshire Dunnington 420York Bedern 257

St. Marys Hospital 258Wharram Percy 466

Unprovenanced (West Riding) 386–7Unprovenanced (London?) 208Unprovenanced (Winchester?) 281Unprovenanced (England) 204, 775–6

12 The Museum Kam at the time Crane’s book was published. These artifacts are now in the possesion of the Museum Het Valkhof.

Besides this published material, I have corresponded withAnnemies Tamboer, of Driebergen in the Netherlands,who iscurrently conducting a survey of archaeological materials fromthat country and has kindly shared the preliminary results of

her inventory. Since about 60 finds in the Catalogue are fromTamboer’s survey, her contribution has been very valuable.Unfortunately, lack of funds and time prevented me from trav-elling to the area to search for and study material myself.

13

Table 1.3: The finds from the Low CountriesRegion Place Site Id. No.

The NetherlandsFriesland Leeuwarden 748Gelderland Bemmel 716

Near Tiel Bergakker 736Nijmegen 662–666, 751Rossum (near Alem) 686–9Wijk by Duurstede (Dorestad) 693

Limburg Heel 744Heerlen 745Maastricht Pandhof St. -Servaas 685Unknown (Limburg) 750

Noord-Brabant ’s Hertogenbosch 746–7Eindhoven 740

Noord-Holland Amsterdam Damrak 69-79 667Korte Houtstraat 9-13/Lange 668Houtstraat 39-49 Zandstraat/Jodenbreetstraat 669Keizersgr. 76/Weesperstraat 670Weesperstraat 671Unknown (Amsterdam) 672–6

Haarlem Frankestraat 743Overijssel Deventer 715

Lemselo 749Westenholte (Zwolle) 756–7

Utrecht Amersfoort Market Place 677–84Vianen Castle “De Bol” 692

Zeeland Haamstede, Schouwen 690Zuid-Beveland 758

Zuid-Holland ’sGravenhage (The Hague) 741–2Delft Altena Castle 717Delft? 730–5Dordrecht Huis Scharlakers 721

Unknown (Dordrecht) 719–20IJsselmonde: Slikkerveer Huis te Woude 718Near the Hague: Ockenburg 752Rotterdam 753–55Rozenburg Europoort 691

Unprovenanced (The Netherlands) 759–72, 777, 806

BelgiumAntwerpen (Antwerp) 784–5Liège Near Vieuxville Logne Castle 723Luxembourg North of Aarlen (Arlon) Herbeumont Castle 724–9

Unknown (Luxembourg) 786Oost-Vlaanderen (East Flanders) Hamme 714

Klein Sinaai 787Unknown (Oost-Vlaanderen) 788–791

West-Vlaanderen (West Flanders) Damme Medieval harbour basin 706–13Unknown (Damme) 704–5Unprovenanced (Belgium) 694–703

GermanyThree jew’s harps excavated in the ruins of TannenbergCastle, near Darmstadt in Hessen, are probably the mostreported finds of all (nos. 152, 153, 500). They were firstrecorded in the middle of the 19th century (Hefner andWolf 1850: 91).The castle was destroyed in 1399, and the

harps were found in association with other 14th centuryartifacts. Sachs wrote that the jew’s harps were the oldest tohave been discovered in Europe (Sachs 1913/1964: 255;1917: 196). Several authors have repeated his conclusions indictionaries and other publications, often accompanied bya reproduction of the illustration of the harp that wasdepicted in 1850 (no. 500).

Fig. 1.1: Facsimile of the standard letter sent to museums in Germany

Apart from this, notably little has been written about theearly period of the jew’s harp in Germany.When I beganmy study I was aware of only two archaeological pieces,from Hamburg (no. 481) and Stendal (no. 482), respective-ly. Both are mentioned by Ypey (1976). I found it remark-able that, as a country with an abundance of archaeologyand museums – not to mention its position between thetwo jew’s harp regions of Scandinavia and the Alpine coun-tries – Germany had no more material of this kind. WasGermany really for some reason almost bereft of jew’s harpfinds from the Middle Ages? I decided to investigate the sit-

uation by mailing museums with requests for information.I used the book Museums of the World (Bartz and Schmidt(eds) 1997), selecting all museums that claimed to coverarchaeology and local history (“Heimatmuseen”). Thisresulted in a mailshot of almost 1600 letters, sent in 1998and 1999.To ensure a response from as many museums aspossible, the letter was written in German.13

Several of the museums forwarded my letter to archaeologi-cal institutions or other museums. Due to the organizationalstructure of German museums, it is difficult to determineexactly how many individual museums replied to the enquiry.For instance, letters to five local museums would sometimesresult in one answer from a central governing museum.However, the number of replies – between 500 and 600 –was satisfactory. Most, of course, were negative. Several simplysuggested references in the literature or gave the names ofcontact persons or institutions; others offered informationabout finds relating to the ethnography and later history ofthe jew’s harp in Germany; and finally, some confirmed thatthey held relevant archaeological material.The end result wasa count of 59 German jew’s harps. If, for the sake of com-parison, we disregard the English copper-alloy harps foundwith metal detectors, the number is approximately the sameas for the United Kingdom.

In 1999 I travelled to the central and southern parts ofGermany to inspect a selection of the material.Among thefinds I studied some were unknown to the organologicaland archaeological literature. These include ten undatedand partly unprovenanced pieces in theMusikinstrumentenmuseum Walter Erdman in Goslar(nos. 159–168). Others are archaeologically well docu-mented, such as two pieces from Einbeck (nos. 157–158),one from Höxter (no. 155), one from Schauenburg nearDossenheim (no. 154), one from Paderborn (no. 156;Eggenstein 2000: 44), and others. In Oberlenningen I metChristoph Bizer, a retired teacher who has specialized inthe medieval castles of the Swabian Alps. He drew myattention to some jew’s harps excavated at those castles(nos 171–3, 488–90).14

14

13 My thanks to Hans-Hinrich Thedens for the translation.14 I also visited Uta Henning, Ludwigsburg, who kindly allowed me access to her large collection of iconographical material with musical motives.

Table 1.4: The finds from GermanyRegion Place Site Id. No.Baden-Württemberg Near Dossenheim (Rhein-Neckar-Kreis) Schauenburg 154

Near Kirchheim u. Teck (Schwäbische Alb) Bittelschieß Castle 171Kallenberg 2 172Lichtenstein Castle 488–9Wielandstein Castle 490Unknown (near Kirchheim) 173

Konstanz Fischmarkt Excavation 491–2Rickenbach, Hotzenwald (Schwarzwald) Wieladingen Castle, lower part 477Sulz am Neckar (Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg) Albeck Castle 472–3

Bayern Erharting (Mühldorf a. Inn) Erharting Castle 474–6Oberwittelsbach (Aiach) Oberwittelsbach Castle 498Passau (Eastern Bayern) The Veste Oberhaus, chapel 494–5Regen: Geiersthal (Eastern Bayern) Altnussberg Castle 471LdKr. Hof Waldstein Castle 176

15

LdKr. Roth Hilpoltstein Castle 175Sonthofen (Allgäu) 499Sulzbach City-Rosenberg (LdKr. Sulzbach Castle 174Amberg-Sulzbach)Treuchtlingen (Franken) Obere Burg 496–7

Hamburg Hamburg The Old City of Hamburg 481Unknown (Hamburg) 166

Hessen Eppstein (Taunus) Eppstein Castle 151Frankenberg 159Kr. Hersfeld-Rotenburg Lautenhausen 169

Wildeck-Raßdorf: Wildeck Castle 170Seeheim-Jugenheim (south of Tannenberg Castle 152–3, 500Darmstadt)Oberursel (Taunus) Bommersheim Castle 501Seligenstadt The Old City of Seligenstadt 478

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Greifswald Steinbecker Straße 26 468Market Place 469–70

Niedersachsen Einbeck (Landkreis Nordheim) Petersilienwasser 157Knochenhauerstr. 19-23 158

Lüneburg Große Backerstraße 27 828Unprovenenced (Niedersachsen) 168

Nordheim-Westfalen Duisburg Alter Markt, Schwanenstraße or Innerhafen 480Höxter Rosenstraze 155Köln Alte Hafenstraße 483–7Olpe (Südsauerland) Attendorn: In der Nette 479Paderborn Balhorner Feld 156

Sachsen-Anhalt Stendal Petersburg-Schusterschwemme 482Schleswig-Holstein Lübeck An der Untertrave/Kaimauer 493Thüringen Meiningen 161Unprovenanced (Germany) 160, 162–3, 165

Austria, Switzerland andLiechtensteinAustria is known as one of the most important jew’s harpcountries in Europe, especially by virtue of the tradition ofmanufacture in Molln in Upper Austria (Oberösterreich).The people of Molln have made harps since the 17th centu-ry, perhaps longer.A jew’s harp guild was established in 1679,and in terms of quantity the production was enormous (Klier1956). Accounts of the history of jew’s harp manufacture inMolln has been published by Klier (op. cit.), Otruba (1986)and Mohr (1998).There is also an article about archaeologi-cal finds of jew’s harps in Oberösterreich (Mohr 1999).Thispublication was my only source for material from Austria,until I received a very informative article which considerseight archaeological pieces from Tirol (Schick 2001).15 Theseitems (nos. 807–814) are all well dated from their archaeolog-ical context.The oldest dates from the late 13th or early 14thcentury,while the two youngest are dated to the fourth quar-ter of the 18th century.Twenty-seven examples from Austriaappear in the Catalogue.

The jew’s harp is well known in the history and ethnogra-phy of Switzerland (Geiser 1980, Bachmann-Geiser 1981).Werner and Hans Oesch have covered the archaeology in acomprehensive article (1972).They introduced a large amountof material, most from medieval castles, but with some findsfrom Alpine mountain dairy huts. At Hallwil Castle alone 85jew’s harps were reported to have been excavated.Apart from

this, single pieces were usually found at each castle.As a rule,dating of the specimens follows the period of existence of theconstruction where they were found, which in general coversthe time span from the 12th to the 16th/17th centuries.Theearliest specimen, a single piece from Alt-Bischofstein Castle,Basel-Land (no. 613),was reported to date back to the last partof the 12th century. These authors also included one harpfound at Neu-Schellenberg in Liechtenstein (no. 617).

Meyer and Oesch also developed a typological classificationof the material based on the shape of the instrument’s bow. Inaddition, their article discusses the social context of the jew’sharp in medieval times.The authors place the instrument ina rural setting associated with the culture of shepherds.Thearchaeological contexts of the finds indicate that inSwitzerland the harp was part of a pastoral culture connectedto the castle.

I went to Switzerland to study some of the finds because Iwas curious about the various finds and types introduced byMeyer and Oesch, which have the additional interest of span-ning the entire period from the 12th to the 17th century. I alsowanted to see the material from Hallwil because it is ratherexceptional for 85 pieces to be excavated at one single loca-tion.What was the condition of the pieces, and what was thetypological variation between them? Were there any indica-tions of jew’s harp production at Hallwil? Finally, I was curi-ous about the pieces from Bischofstein because one of them(no. 613) was purported to date from the late 12th century.That would make it the oldest in Europe, apart from the

15 I am grateful to Annemies Tamboer for drawing my attention to this article.

Table 1.5: The finds from Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Region Place Site Id. No.AustriaEastern Tirol Near Lienz Bruck Castle 810Oberösterreich (Upper Austria) Enns 335, 337–8

Parz. 1132 336Molln Below “Ebner Wirt” (Sonnseite 26) 348

Sperrboden: Front of F. Wimmers' house 349–50Near Haus, Ennsthal Plankenalm 351–3

Gemeinde Schönau: Near the ruins of Prandegg Castle 342–3Gemeinde Tragwein: Near the ruins of Reichenstein Castle 341Windischgarsten Lot no. 441, south of “Hafnerbank” 344Near Leonstein Castle 339–40

Salzburg (county) Kniepaß bei Lofer Kniepaß Fort 345–7Tirol KG Alpbach (PB Rattenberg) Untererlbach-Hof 812

Near Erpfendorf (BH Kitzbühel) Erpfenstein Castle 811Kufstein Fort (BH Kufstein) “Josefsburg” 813–4Seefeld (BH Innsbruck-Land) Schloßberg 807–9

LiechtensteinSchellenberg Schellenberg Castle Obere Burg, Field 2 617

Obere Burg, Field 13 650

SwitzerlandAargau (AG) SE of Koblenz Zurzach 647

Oftringen (near Olten) Alt-Wartburg 293–4Near Rheinfelden Höflingen, Stone setting F3 509Seethal: Near Seengen Hallwil Castle 526–610, 636, 648

Basel Land (BL) Near Sissach Alt-Bischofstein (Hinterer Burg) 613Neu-Bischofstein (Vorderer Burg) 614, 637–8

Bern (BE) Bern Bümpliz Old Castle 611North of Delémont Löwenburg 615Zihl (Thielle) Canal Foreshore of Zihl (Thielle) 619

Glarus (GL) Above Braunwald Bergeten 510Graubünden (GR) Chur Brauerei 656

Haldenstein Castle at Haldenstein 653Medel valley: Lukmanier Lukmanierhospiz Sta. Maria 508Prättigau: Schiers 507Near Savognin Riom-Parsonz 651S-chanf Chapella 654

San Güerg 657Silvaplana/Surley Via Ruinas 655Tomils/Tumegl Sogn Murezi 652

Obwalden (OW) Melchsee-Frutt 620Sankt Gallen (SG) Oberhelfenschwil Neutoggenburg Castle 525Schwyz (SZ) Illgau Balmis (Balmli) 640

March: Near Schübelbach Mülenen Castle 512–24Steinen Au Convent “Auf der Au” 639

Thurgau (TG) Diessenhofen Unterhof Castle 649

16

alleged Roman, Gallo-Roman and Saxon finds. I visited theSchweizerische Landesmuseum in Zürich for the Hallwilfinds, and Liestal, where I had traced the Bischofstein harps.16

Seven of the pieces from Hallwil turned out to be stored inStockholm at the Hallvylska Museet. In Zürich I document-ed 79 pieces (bringing the number for Hallwil up to 86).Thespecimens were generally in good condition. They werestored according to the classifications made by the Swedisharchaeologist Niels Lithberg, who introduced his classificato-ry scheme in volume three of his comprehensive publicationon the excavations at the castle (Lithberg 1932).

The Bischofstein finds were indeed interesting to inspect

and study.The excavations and finds of the castle ruins at Alt-and Neu-Bischofstein had been restudied by Felix Müller(1980).Through a reading of this report I realized that thereis no evidence for the claimed 12th century dating of thepiece from Alt-Bischofstein (no. 613), the correct dating forwhich should be given as 1150–1350 (op. cit. 75; cf. Dialogueone, p. 30).

In addition to my journey, I selected a number of museumsand archaeological units in the Swiss cantons (counties) fordirect enquiries by letter and e-mail. Surprisingly, I receivedinformation on several pieces as a result, bringing the totalnumber of finds from Switzerland up to 137.

16 I also went to Basel, where I met the archaeologist, Prof. Dr. Werner Meyer, who kindly gave me the benefit of his expertise during a dis-cussion of the Swiss material.

France, Iberia and ItalyIn France the situation is somewhat similar to that inEngland inasmuch as early archaeologists excavated jew’sharps at sites that were taken to indicate a Gallo-Romanorigin. The best known of these are the four pieces fromRouen (nos. 325–328). The others are single finds fromLevroux (no. 329), Issoudun (no. 330) and Cimiez (no. 621).On the basis of a re-examination of these finds, CatherineHomo-Lechner (1996; Homo-Lechner and Vendries 1993)has concluded that the objects were excavated in settingsthat do not substantiate the suggested early datings.

Homo-Lechner has also published other French finds,from Paris and elsewhere (Homo-Lechner 1987a, 1987b,1996).The largest number were found at Cour Napoleon,at the Louvre, Paris, where 18 pieces from the 15th to the17th centuries were unearthed (nos. 305–324).

Apart from these, the Centre d’Archéologie Médiévale deStrasbourg reported ten jew’s harps in the 1970s (nos.625–633, 659). These were dated stratigraphically to theperiod from the 13th to the 16th century (Rieb and Salch1973, 1976).

These and other published finds from France bring thetotal number of discoveries up to 53. I have been unable todevote further effort to gathering or researching Frenchmaterial due to lack of time and resources.The only Frenchjew’s harp I have seen myself is no. 621 from Cimiez, whichI viewed in the exhibition of the Archaeological Museumat Cimiez, Nice.

We know that the instrument has been used in Italy andthe Iberian Peninsula at least since the 16th century. Someregions exhibit strong and surviving traditions.The status ofthe jew’s harp in Spain and Portugal is largely uncovered in

the literature, at least in publications in the English language.There is current playing activity in Gallicia, where a seminardevoted to the instrument was held in 2003 (Melhus 2003).How far back this folk-musical tradition goes remains anopen question. Excavations of a Spanish settlement inArgentina, inhabited from 1573 to 1660 (Pignocchi 2005),might indicate export of jew’s harps from Spain, though wedo not know if the specimens in question were manufacturedlocally in Argentina.

However, I was unable to acquire information on findsfrom Spain or Portugal, and archaeological harps for whichthere is published material are unknown to me.Consequently, the Catalogue has no entries for the IberianPeninsula.

Italian traditions are well known, especially those fromSicily and Sardinia, where there is a powerful style of play-ing on characteristic large iron instruments with open andwide bows. For northern Italy there is written documenta-tion on the forging of ribebas going back to the 16th cen-tury in Valsesia, where Boccorio was the most importantmanufacturing place (Lovatto 1983, 2004). Here there wasmass production on a similar or larger scale than in Mollnin Austria. The Italian language has several terms for theinstrument, of which scacciapensieri is the best known.

In the search for archaeological material I sent my stan-dard enquiry letter to some important museums. From amailing of approximately 80 letters, translated into Italian,17

I received about 30 answers, but there were no reports ofexcavated harps.

However, I later discovered a single archaeological speci-men (no. 796) on the internet. This was excavated at thecastle of Montereale east of Udine in the Friuli region(Grattoni d’Aranco 1987). It is dated to the 16th century.

17

Kradolf-Schönenberg: Near Buhwil Anwil Castle 658Ticino (TI) Bellinzona Castel Grande 511

Val Bavona La Presa 646Valais (VS) Lötschenthal: Wiler (Lötschen) Giätrich: structure 6, level 18 618

Sion Valere Castle 645Zürich (ZH) Near Dietikon Schönenwerd Castle 612

Furttal: Near Regensdorf Alt-Regensberg 641–4Betweeen Wädenswil and Richterswil Alt-Wädenswil Castle 634

Table 1.6: The finds from France and Italy

Region Place Site Id. No.Alsace Leimental Landskron Castle 616

Petit Landau, Butenheim 624Rathsamhausen-Ottrott FB5, field F (9 L 1) 625

FB5, field B (9 L 2) 626FB5, field A (9 L 3) 627FB 3-4, Field D (9 L 4) 630BC III, Field A (9 L 5) 633

Saverne, Haut-Barr 623Selestat Ortenbourg Castle 628–9, 631–2

Centre Val de Loire Indre: Levroux 329(Central Loire Valley)

Indre: Near Issoudun 330

17 My thanks to Eva Falck for the translation.

18

Cher: Mehun-sur-Yèvre Castle of duke Jean de Berry 333Cote d’Azur Nice (Alpes-Maritimes) Cimiez 621

Rougiers (Var) (Grotte G) 622Ile de France Chevreuse 303

Saint-Denis 302Paris Cour Napoléon, Grand Louvre 305–24Languedoc-Roussillon Montségur Montségur Castle 304Lorraine Metz Place de la Comédie 825

West of Moutmédy Chauveney-le-Chateau 722Midi-Pyrénées Toulouse Gúe de Bazacle 801–5Normandie Rouen Grosse-Horlogne/Place du 325

Vieux-MarchéRue de l’Hôtel de Ville 326Rue Rollon/rue de l’Impératrice 327Unknown (Rouen) 328

Rhône-Alpes Gironville (Near Ambronay) 332Brandes-en-Oisans (Isère) 331

ItalyFriuli-Venezia Giulia Montereale (Cellina Valley) Montereale Castle 796

The BalkansIn the Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania andGreece) I have not come across any finds from archaeolog-ical settings, although I made no special effort to determineif there are any.

Anna Gojkovic has written about the jew’s harp in the for-mer Yugoslavia in two articles (Gojkovic 1981, 1989). Shestates that in Serbia the jew’s harp was played, but that it wasnot known before the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19thcentury, when it was brought in from Austria and Hungary.

Ethnographical sources report that the instrument hasbeen known in Bulgaria too (Todorov 1973: 30–1). Jew’sharps were made in Gabrovo until 1938.They were sold inBalkan shops and markets as a toy for children (ibid.). Howfar back the history of the instrument goes in Bulgariaremains unknown.

I do not know any reports about indigenous jew’s harp tra-ditions from Greece, and the lack of archaelogical finds istherefore no surprise.This is similar to the situation in Turkey,where there is no known tradition of making or playing thejew’s harp (Picken 1975: 584). However, it is very unlikelythat no instruments from the large-scale production centres ofthe Alpine region and elsewhere reached these countries.

The central and eastern parts of Europe18

My efforts to collect material from the central and easternparts of the continent have been so limited that I feel theseareas should not be included in this work at all.The fact is thatI have focused on the northern and western parts of Europe,and it has to be admitted that to refer to this somewhatrestricted area as “Europe” is questionable insofar as it main-

tains a view of Europe that is simply geographical incorrect.Afriend of mine in Siauliai, Lithuania, claims that he lives in themiddle of Europe.A glance at the map proves that he is right.

Despite these critical remarks, I have decided neverthe-less to consider material from the whole of Europe becauseI want the central, southern and eastern regions to be partof the story. I feel that this is justified as long as my inter-pretations acknowledge the geographical imbalance of thesurvey. In principle, the situation is little different for cer-tain individual countries where I have done little to collectmaterial (Denmark, France,Austria and others).

Another reason for including countries and regions witha small number of known finds (or where I have made nospecial efforts to collect material ) is the hope that peoplewill be motivated to search in museum holdings, excavationreports and even in the earth so that the “white areas” ofthe map can be filled in.

Having said this, the central and eastern regions are nottotally devoid of finds, as will be illustrated in the followingparagraphs. I have made no investigations in Romania, butI have noted six published pieces from Romania, all fromthe Moldova region. Five appear in a book on Romanianmusic history (nos. 461–5; Cosma 1977: 34), while the lastexample is from an archaeological publication (no. 660;Ursachi 1995, Pl. 343).19

The Hungarian archaeologist Thomas Repiszky haskindly provided information on ten jew’s harps excavatedin Hungary (Repiszky 1996, and pers. comm.).Descriptions of some of these have been published by theirexcavators (nos. 359, 360, 362–364).

Repiszky is currently working on an updated article aboutthe history and archaeology of the jew’s harp in Hungary, andhe will also consider other countries of the same region.Thisis especially welcome because very little is known about the

18 The central parts of Europe are understood to mean Poland, The Czeck Republic, Slovenia and Hungary. Although the choice of geographi-cal terms are never entirely neutral, they are used here for the sake of clarity in this material.

19 Dr Danica Stassikova-Stukovska, Nitra, drew my attention to this find.

19

Table 1.7: The finds from the central and eastern parts of Europe

Region Place Site Id. No.

The Republic of BelarusGrodno region Lida Lida Castle 821Mogilev region Drutsk Drutsk Castle 820

Mstislavl Mstislavl Castle 823Vitebsk region Vitebsk Vitebsk Castle 822

EstoniaHarju county Lehmja 414–15

Tallinn St. Brigitta’s Convent 412, 416Nigulisbe, old cemetery of St. Nicolai’s ch. 413

Pärnu county Pärnu Munga Street 2 411Tartu county (South Estonia) Tartu 418, 659Valga county (Southeast Estonia) Otepaa Otepaa Castle 417

HungaryAlföld (Great Hungarian Plain) Muhi 359–60

instrument’s status in the Middle Ages here, as noted above.Five examples found in the present Slovakia have come to

my knowledge. One (no. 361) was dug up at the castle ofFülek in 1944,when the area belonged to Hungary,20 anoth-er is from Bratislava Castle (no. 460; Polla 1979: 248, 249;Elschek 1983: 58), and a third comes from the village ofBranc, from an excavation for an oil pipeline (no. 467;Ruttkay, Cheben and Ruttkayova 1994; Ruttkay 1995). Inaddition to theese, two unpublished harps from Slovakian cas-tles are included (nos. 826–7).

Poland was a country with no finds that I knew of until I sentoff 20 letters of enquiry (in German) to the main archaeologicalmuseums and institutions in the provinces.As a result I receivedinformation on four relevant finds.Three are from Lower Silesia– one from Szczerba Castle (no. 737) and two from WroclawCity (nos. 738–739).The fourth is from Gdansk (no. 792).

Similarly, it is very likely that jew’s harps have beenunearthed in the Czech Republic. However, I have no infor-mation on any, but nor have I made enquiries in that country.

In the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) severalarchaeological jew’s harps have been found. These came tomy knowledge in the first instance through personal com-munication with ethnomusicologists. Descriptions of most ofthe items have been published. Nine finds are noted fromEstonia (Tõnurist 1996), 15 from Latvia (Urtans 1970,Priedite 1988), and two from Lithuania.21

Four specimens from Belarus (nos.820–3), that came to myknowledge by chance, show that the jew’s harp was knownthere as well.They were all been excavated at medieval cas-tles. I have done no further survey of the situation in Belarus.

I know of no finds from Ukraine and I have not sent let-ters of enquiry or searched in other ways. However, fromethnographical sources the instrument is known to haveexisted there. For instance, the Hutsul people of Ukraine stillhave a lively tradition that includes the manufacture and play-

ing of instruments. One of their instruments is of the doubletype, with two lamellae (Dallais et al. 2002: 20–1), very simi-lar to pieces excavated in Austria (no. 349) and Switzerland(no. 542).Vertkov (et al.1987: 41) reports that ensembles play-ing on jew’s harps of different sizes may occasionally beencountered in Ukraine.

In many parts of Russia the jew’s harp has had a particu-larly strong position in traditional music. Several ethnicgroups have used it, and there is a great typological diversity,including idioglottic instruments made of organic materials(Vertkov et al. op. cit.). Five pieces are known from excavationsat Novgorod (nos. 295–299; Povetkin 1992: 21).Another wasfound in the medieval layers during excavations at Bryansk incentral Russia (no. 799; Ravdina 1973).22

Single finds can sometimes be very important – forexample, because of their chronological significance.Thus,interestingly, a jew’s harp was excavated in a ninth centuryburial mound in Idelbayev, Bashkortostan, Russia (no. 300).My only source of information on this was for quite sometime a CD cover (Shurov 1995) where the find is men-tioned. Only recently I learned about a Russian article byits excavator N.A. Mazhitov (1981) that illustrates the spec-imen.This is not a jew’s harp of the common heteroglot-tic, bow-shaped type found throughout Europe, but anidioglottic example, made of one flat piece of silver.Although it diverges from the remaining material here andbelongs to the Ural-region I decided to include it in theCatalogue.

Another interesting find is known from the town ofYekimauts in the Republic of Moldova (no. 301). It is datedto the ninth or tenth century according to publications in aRussian archaeological journal (Fedorov 1954, Kolchin1959).The instrument has an oval shape to the bow and isvery similar to a modern piece from a village in the vicini-ty, as illustrated in one of the publications (Fedorov, op. cit.).

20 Thomas Repiszky, pers. comm.21 R Apanavicius, Vilnius, pers. comm.22 Frederick Crane, Mt Pleasant, Iowa, USA, informed me about this find.

20

Near Cegled Nyúlfülehalom 364Tiszaörvény 355Túrkeve 354

Borsod-Abaúj (Northern Highlands) Szuhogy Csorbak Castle 356Budapest Budapest: Buda Castle 357Dunántúl (Transdanubia) Visegrád Visegrád Castle 362Kisalföld (Western Lowlands) Szentmihály 363Unprovenanced (Hungary) 358

LatviaMaliena Aluksne Aluksne Castle 407North Kurzeme Ventspils Ventspils Castle, Commanders room 829

Sabile (Talsi county) Sabile senpilseta 396Vidzeme Cesis (Cesis county) Cesis Castle 404–6

Lielvarde (Aizkraukle county) Lielvarde pilskalns 399Turaida (Riga county) Turaida Castle 397–8, 400Valmiera (Valmiera county) Valmiera Castle 401–3Vecdole (Riga county) Vecdole Castle 394–5

LithuaniaAukstaitija: Kaunas region Trakai Trakai Castle 426Dzukija: Vilnius region Vilnius Vilnius Castle 427

PolandDolny Slask (Lower Silesia) Wroclaw (Breslau): The Old City 738–9

Miedzylesie (Glatz) Szczerba Castle 737Pomorze Gdansk Site no. 103, “Green Gate” 792

The Republic of MoldovaOrhei Yekimauts (Between Orhei and Rezina) 301

RomaniaMoldova Bacau: Brad (Zargidava) 660

Unknown (Moldova) 461–5RussiaCentral Russia: Bryansk Bryansk 799regionNorthwest Russia: Novgorod 295–9Novgorod regionUral region: Bashkortostan Salavat district: Idelbayev Idelbayev Burial Mound 300

SlovakiaBratislavsk˘ Bratislava Pozsony Castle? 460Middle-South Slovakia Filakovo (Fülek) 361Nitra region Branc village (south of Nitra) Velka Ves; Position Arkus I 467Unprovenanced (Slovakia) 826–7

DocumentationTo recapitulate, the material on archaeological finds of jew’sharps presented in this thesis comes from a range ofsources, with only some of the finds documented bymyself. In those cases where I had the opportunity to studythe objects I aimed to set a standard of documentation thatensured accuracy and uniformity throughout. A recurringchallenge has been to find a balance between being as thor-ough as possible on the one hand, and not falling into blinddocumentation of every little detail on the other.The prob-lem arises because it is important to collect relevant infor-mation in the framework of a guiding question or focus, yetit is in the nature of this kind of research that the questionsone asks may change during the process. One should there-fore approach the research material with a wide perspectiveand accept that it is better to err on the side of overdocu-

mentation.When studying artifacts held in distant institu-tions this is of course especially important for practical rea-sons. Another argument for making detailed and thoroughrecords is that future researchers may take differentapproaches to the material.

My own method for making good, reliable records in thefield has been to make notes, often of an associative kind;to make measurements and observations of technical detailsaccording to a uniform standard; to take photographs; andfinally, to make drawings.To facilitate the standardization Iused a form that has turned out to be very efficient (Fig.1.2). For terminology and descriptions of the various fea-tures of the specimens, the reader is referred to Chaptertwo on technology and Chapter four on typology.

Not being a photographer or illustrator I have had tolearn to cope with the visual side of things. It is difficult totake good photographs of objects as small as a jew’s harp.

21

Although I have learned much during the process, I wouldideally have left this aspect of the work to professional pho-tographers.The same can be said of the processing of imagesin a computer.23 Regarding technical illustrations, time didnot usually allow detailed drawings of the artifacts.The pur-pose of my field drawings was not to make polished illus-trations for publication but to help to identify the piecesduring later work with them, and sometimes to illustrateimportant technological details.

The field notes and photos have been entered into mydatabase, which is based on 4th Dimension software. Thedatabase consists of selected information from my fieldnotes along with information from other sources. Asexplained earlier, the Catalogue consists of selected infor-mation from the database.This information is selective inthat some notes in the database are not relevant to the the-sis.The Catalogue corresponds to the various analyses anddiscussions in the text.

23 Thanks to Ann-Turi Ford for guiding me through the technical problems and possibilities of computer graphics.

ID. NO. COUNTRY

OVERALL LENGTH (OL)

OVERALL WITH/WIDTH OF BOW (OW)

LENGTH OF BOW

LENGTH OF ARMS (AL)

LENGTH OF LAMELLA (LL)

CONDITION

DESCRIPTION/SPECIAL TRAITS

SHAPE OF BOWTECHNIQUE

DATE OF REGISTRATION DATING

PLACE, LOCALITY POSSESSORYEAR OF FINDING ACCESSION NO.

Cross-section of the bow

Material

(Makers) mark?

Attachment of the lamella

Anything of the lamella preserved?

Lamella-extension behind the bow?

If not: Could it have been extended?

Drawing/complementary comments:

Hexagonal

Iron

Yes

Wedged

Yes

Yes

Yes

Diamond-shaped

Cu-alloy

No

Hammered Soldered?

No

No

No

Rectang-ular

Not obser-vable

Not obser-vable

Twisted Other

Other

Fig. 1.2: Facsimile of the standard form used for documentation